Programs: BA: Just relegated to poo colour! VS Red, DC, HH, PC
Posts: 1,029
The mechanics of a Flexible Fare
I have usually always known when my travel dates / times would be and on the occasions that there might be last minute changes, my company has paid for a flexible fare. Normally, I have made the original flight.
I have a trip lined up whereby I won't even know what day I am flying on, let alone the time; my company will be purchasing a fully flexible fare for me, for a random time / date (educated guess as to when I might need it).
Has anyone had an experience of this sort of thing?
Do I call up BA as soon as I know the time/date I need to travel (I know that it will be very short notice)?
Do I just turn up at LHR and try to get on the next flight?
Just as a point, the flight in question will be LHR - BRU, so plenty of flights per day.
__________________
Back in the land of the living... (If you call this 'living')
I have usually always known when my travel dates / times would be and on the occasions that there might be last minute changes, my company has paid for a flexible fare. Normally, I have made the original flight.
I have a trip lined up whereby I won't even know what day I am flying on, let alone the time; my company will be purchasing a fully flexible fare for me, for a random time / date (educated guess as to when I might need it).
Has anyone had an experience of this sort of thing?
Do I call up BA as soon as I know the time/date I need to travel (I know that it will be very short notice)?
Do I just turn up at LHR and try to get on the next flight?
Just as a point, the flight in question will be LHR - BRU, so plenty of flights per day.
It depends how much flexibility you need.
There are varying degrees of flexibility. However you only get to flex a fare (for changes) within the fare bucket you book. Typical ex-UK flex buckets are C, D and J. J has most flexibility because any flight with empty CE seats will always offer J but C and especially D may be more restricted.
You book the flight based on your expected dates and then move the dates if necessary. If you don't know when you are going to travel you are better off waiting to book until you absolutely do know when you will be travelling outbound.
Programs: BA: Just relegated to poo colour! VS Red, DC, HH, PC
Posts: 1,029
Quote:
Originally Posted by Land-of-Miles
You book the flight based on your expected dates and then move the dates if necessary. If you don't know when you are going to travel you are better off waiting to book until you absolutely do know when you will be travelling outbound.
Thanks, but I won't know exactly when I need to travel until the day itself.
If going for a rough day/time, my question remains: how to change it at almost zero notice?
__________________
Back in the land of the living... (If you call this 'living')
Programs: BA Gold, Virgin Silver, a-club platinum, Nigerian lottery winner + BA Advent £10 duty free winner.
Posts: 763
I would call up before going to LHR as there might not be space on the next flight, if there is go if not book the next one and travel a bit later. Simples.
__________________
the views in my threads are mine all mine. Any facts stated are accurate and true, I know they are as I made them up myself.
Since you don't know the date, what do you gain by making a booking? Apart from the slim chance you guessed the correct date, the ticket will still be repriced if you change it and there still has to be availability in that bucket on the chosen date. Or am I mistaken?
Programs: Many. Too many. I came here to cut them down. I failed.
Posts: 746
Quote:
Originally Posted by angatol
Since you don't know the date, what do you gain by making a booking?
Got to agree - you have a ticket but no seat. If there are no seats available, you have a ticket, but you don't get the chance of downgrading to Economy, flying Sabena, or even if push comes to shove, jumping on the Eurostar.
Why not just buy a ticket when you know what's what?
Got to agree - you have a ticket but no seat. If there are no seats available, you have a ticket, but you don't get the chance of downgrading to Economy, flying Sabena, or even if push comes to shove, jumping on the Eurostar.
Not quite. J, C and D are fully refundable so could just refund and rebook.
Programs: BA: Just relegated to poo colour! VS Red, DC, HH, PC
Posts: 1,029
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sam Bee
Why not just buy a ticket when you know what's what?
It gets slightly more complicated:
My travel date will probably be 21/22/23 Dec. My office will be closed from the 21st. The travel clerk in the office needs to book it all before knocking-off for Christmas, so I think that I am left with booking a ticket and then changing it as the time approaches.
Hence my original question of how to re-book or whether to turn up and 'wing it'.
__________________
Back in the land of the living... (If you call this 'living')
I would agree with the others, you will not gain anything by holding a ticket and if you're flying at short notice it might actually be simpler to buy a new ticket rather than spend time trying to change an existing one (that is a bit of supposition, though).
There is no problem buying tickets at short notice, e.g. It's 11:15 here right now and ba.com is offering to sell me a flight on a 12:30 departure to Europe. Considering that conformance is at 35 minutes then I think anything up to an hour before departure should be easy (although you might not get a meal loaded!)
However, one issue to look out for if you're travelling for work; you might need to get trip approvals, etc. so if this is the case you're much better off booking the ticket in advance and changing on the day.
My travel date will probably be 21/22/23 Dec. My office will be closed from the 21st. The travel clerk in the office needs to book it all before knocking-off for Christmas, so I think that I am left with booking a ticket and then changing it as the time approaches.
If you are determined to travel and don't want hassle rebooking at the last minute / without your TA around... what would happen if you booked 3 flexible tickets, one for each of those days?
Obviously a big up-front cost, but presumably the 2 tickets you didn't end up using would (eventually) be refunded in full ...
I would think the flaw is around the time - seems like the OP doesn't know what time they will need to fly until the last minute, so using that book-and-cancel approach would probably require quite a lot more bookings than just one flight per day...
Programs: Hilton HHonors Diamond, British Airways Silver, Aer Lingus Gold, Priority Club Platinum, ABP
Posts: 9,672
Quote:
Originally Posted by onaswan
It gets slightly more complicated:
My travel date will probably be 21/22/23 Dec. My office will be closed from the 21st. The travel clerk in the office needs to book it all before knocking-off for Christmas, so I think that I am left with booking a ticket and then changing it as the time approaches.
Hence my original question of how to re-book or whether to turn up and 'wing it'.
Bear in mind if the travel clerk uses a travel agent, then you will need to go back to the travel agent to get any changes (with the possible exception of inside 24 hours before your booked departure once the ticket goes under airport control).
Programs: BA Gold (and many other greater and lesser distinctions)
Posts: 5,553
The very short answer is that if the ticket is flexible, you should be able to change it online (hit and miss), or by phone or at the airport. It really depends how easily you have access to each.
I had a ticket changed to the flight I wanted to be on at T5 at the check-in desk at 46 mins before departure, when the cut off for check-in was 45 mins. The check in agents CAN do anything that they want to a booking (including in that case putting me on a flight for which there were no seats in the lowish fare bucket that I had paid for). Overall the check-in desk is you best option, but recognising that if flights are busy and you don't call up in advance you may miss out on seats that disappear between when you could have called up and when you get to the desk. It really is no more than common sense !
